Aidan O’Brien has offered a note of caution about the possibility of a second clash between Gstaad and stablemate True Love in the Keeneland Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh.<\/p>\n
First time around at Navan in May, Gstaad got going late to catch the filly True Love, who had already had the benefit of a previous run.<\/p>\n
The pair then went to Royal Ascot where Gstaad won the Coventry Stakes and True Love broke her maiden in the Queen Mary.<\/p>\n
Since then True Love has beaten the boys in the Railway Stakes by five lengths and actually brings a higher official rating than Gstaad, who has not run since Ascot.<\/p>\n
The colt, who is the choice of Ryan Moore, has given O\u2019Brien a slight cause for concern on Friday but the handler hopes it is nothing too serious.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019ve met before obviously and the filly has that little bit more experience than the colt,” said O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
“She\u2019s had an extra run since Ascot, so it\u2019s going to be interesting.<\/p>\n
“The filly has a higher rating which is interesting but Gstaad was very good at Ascot.<\/p>\n
“It has always been the plan for him to run at Ascot, have a little break and then go to the Curragh with him.<\/p>\n
“Everything has been fine with both of them since, the filly hasn\u2019t done much since she ran the other week.<\/p>\n
“Gstaad has been working well but he was just a little bit quiet this morning. I don\u2019t think it was anything serious \u2013 all his work has gone well but he was just a little quiet so hopefully he\u2019ll be OK.”<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien also runs Puerto Rico, second to True Love in the Railway and to Coppull in the Richmond Stakes at Goodwood.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s son Joseph fields the main danger in Green Sense, winner of the Prix Robert Papin last time out and a late absentee from the Ballyhane Stakes on Monday.<\/p>\n
He said: “We\u2019re happy with her off the back of a good run.<\/p>\n
“It looks a strong renewal of the race, obviously, if dad\u2019s two turn up.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re hoping for a good run from her, and it would be great if she could get Group One-placed.”<\/p>\n
Power Blue has not dodged anyone all season finishing fifth in the Coventry and third in the Railway, so Adrian Murray\u2019s colt faces a tall order in his bid to give the yard a second win in the race in three years.<\/p>\n
Murray said: “This looks a tough race for Power Blue, but he\u2019s been running well in all the big races and he\u2019s danced all the dances.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s in great form so we\u2019ll let him take his chance. We\u2019ll see if Aidan runs both his big guns, you never know.<\/p>\n
“We won this with Bucanero Fuerte two years ago and he would have the edge at the same stage. Power Blue is a very nice horse, but Bucanero just always had that touch of class, he\u2019s a Group One winner.”<\/p>\n
Power Blue is owned by Amo Racing as is the final runner in the field, David Loughnane\u2019s Do Bronxs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aidan O’Brien has offered a note of caution about the possibility of a second clash between Gstaad and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-54471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}